Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran

The gap between the rich and poor is getting bigger and bigger around the world. Social media feeds and accelerates this ever-widening divide. In the global south we see the children of elites and post-colonial dictatorships, flashing cash, dollar signs, Bollinger and infinity pool holidays while people suffer under sanctions and dictatorships.

Rich Kids is a play about entitlement and consumption, about how digital technology is complicit in social apartheid and gentrification and the human problem of what successful and brutal people do with their coddled and useless children. It’s the sequel to the award-winning, The Believers Are But Brothers, and the second part of a trilogy of plays about how digital technology, resentment and fracturing identity are changing the world.

Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran is a Javaad Alipoor and HOME co-production, which is also co-commissioned by The Bush and Theatre in the Mill.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

“Magnificently revived” ***** YORKSHIRE POST

Chosen as a “Must See” by “a director increasing weight” **** THE TIMES

“Javaad Alipoor unquestionably succeeded in casting an outstanding cast for this harrowing tale, with every performer on stage advancing his directorial concept and captivating my attention in their role” NORTH WEST END

“Alipoor's production commands the vast Crucible stage” WHAT’S ON STAGE

“Javaad Alipoor teases out the complexity of the relationships presented in the psychiatric ward and suggests a broader social context in which the freedom of the individual is constrained by the requirements of the state” BRITISH THEATRE GUIDE

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest was the culmination of working with Sheffield Theatres for eighteen months as part of Arts Council England’s Change Makers programme. The production was the first to be directed by a person of colour at the Crucible.

The Believers Are But Brothers - BBC4

Originally broadcast on March 24, 2019 on BBC4, The Believers Are But Brothers was adapted for television from the award-winning play of the same name.

It was Pick of the Week in the Sun, the Daily Mail, The Telegraph and the Times.

About the Production

Artist, writer and activist Alipoor steps into the dark, blurry online world of fantasists and extremists to tell four fictional stories - of an ISIS recruiter, two British recruits and an alt-right ‘white boy’ from California.

Extremists communicate openly on social media and young men find power in digital fantasy, unleashing their wrath on the world. Alipoor’s fictional play captivated audiences with its portrayal of a shifting world of truth, fantasy, violence and hyper-reality just one click away and his television adaptation promises to take BBC Four audiences deep into this digital realm.

Through the screens on our phones and in our homes, and the apps we use every day, he explores this complex and controversial world via an electronic maze of meme culture, 4chan, the alt-right and ISIS. Along the way he uncovers a toxic mix of the harmlessly bizarre and the horrific, gaming and chatrooms, infamous ads and propaganda, brutal misogyny and weird fantasy, where, seemingly cut off from real world values and boosted by anonymity, anything can be said or done.

It was commissioned for television by The Space.

The Rising of the Moon

The Rising of the Moon was a promenade site-specific play that told the story of the Bradford Chartist Rising of 1842. It took places across four locations and featured digital technology, live action and a medium sized riot.

"...as radical in form as it is in content... the writing is incisive and bitingly revolutionary...this, indeed, is one of the key concepts of the play: it is not a ‘dead’ history, it is alive and kicking and screaming out for justice."

The Reviews Hub 5*

The Rising of the Moon was the culmination of a year long series of community theatre projects, exploring the lasting relevance of the Chartist movement to socially excluded and minority communities. We worked all across Bradford to right a new "People's Charter"

The Rising of the Moon was commissioned by Bradford Festival, and supported by the National Lottery and Arts Council England.

The Believers Are But Brothers

“AN EXTRAORDINARY, TECHED UP SHOW…THE BUZZ SHOW OF LAST YEAR’S EDINBURGH FRINGE” THE NEW YORK TIMES

“COMPLEX...MASTERLY...ONE OF THE MOST FASCINATING SHOWS I HAVE SEEN IN AN AGE” ***** FINANCIAL TIMES

We live in a time where old orders are collapsing. From the post colonial nation states of the Middle East, to the EU and the American election. Through it all, tech savvy and bloodthirsty groups like ISIS run through European drawn border lines.

Amidst this, a generation of young men, find themselves burning with resentment; without the money, power and sex they think they deserve and this crisis of masculinity leads them on a journey into an online world of fantasy, violence and reality. Written by Manchester based Javaad Alipoor, this Fringe First award winning and Total Theatre Nominated (Experimentation & Innovation) multi-media show weaves together their stories. One of the word of mouth hits of this years Edinburgh Fringe, this is a play both in and of our times.

The play was supported by TRANSFORM, The Ovalhouse, HOME, Northern Stage, National Theatre Studio and Arts Council England.

My Brothers Country

The dislocation of the revolution in one man.

An international co-production with Riverside’s National Theatre of Parramatta, development is underway for My Brother's Country. The story of Fereydoun Farrokhzad, singer, poet, TV producer and for some a gay icon, found brutally murdered in his small bedsit where he lived in exile.

The play explores the transcendence of art, sexuality, religion, the birth of the modern Middle East and the importance of icons in diaspora.

Currently looking for producing and/or presenting partners for 2021 and beyond.

A previous version of this work was co-commissioned by Theatre in the Mill, ARC Stockton and The Lowry and supported by Bradford MDC and Arts Council England in 2015. The team included Natalie Diddams (Dramaturg, Co-Director), Madalene Wills (Lighting Design) and Martin Thompson (Sound Design).

Orgreave: An English Civil War

Orgreave: An English Civil War was a large community project that took place in two locations. It was a response to the often parochial and short sighted way theatre artists engage with the heritage of the Miners Strike.

Versions of the play were performed at both the site of the Battle of Orgreave as part of the 2015 Orgreave mass picnic, as well at Bradford's Theatre in the Mill. It used music, movement, spoken word and theatre to tell the story of the Battle of Orgreave and the Miners Strike, whilst teasing out the parallels to the crushing of the hopes of the Arab Spring.

The Phone Box

Listen in full here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/play/m0000mp6

BBC Radio 4 Short Works

How does a boy learn when to run away, when to fight back and when to hide in a phone box? Written and performed by Javaad Alipoor, The Phone Box is a new short work for radio. It's a poetic monologuereflecting on those formative moments of childhood that stay with you, bright and ringing, into adulthood.

Javaad Alipoor is a writer, theatre maker and director who grew up in Bradford. He is resident associate director at Sheffield theatres and an associate director of Bradford's Theatre in the Mill. This is his Radio 4 debut.

His most recent play, 'The Believers Are But Brothers', invites audiences to experience the world of disaffected men online. It was Fringe First award winning and Total Theatre Nominated. His other plays include 'The Rising of the Moon' and 'Bassett.'

He also writes poetry and prose. His pamphlet 'The People Want a long form poem about the Arab Spring' was published by Art in Unusual Places. His essays and theory-fiction on global politics, philosophy and art have been published by Continuum and UnKant.